


Glass Hearts

by unionforj



Category: Union J (Band)
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-06
Updated: 2013-01-06
Packaged: 2017-12-06 19:03:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/739064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unionforj/pseuds/unionforj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>George's heart is hidden away in his sock drawer, disgusting, and broken in two. It's going to stay there, always, as planned. But then he meets Josh, and Jaymi, and everything slowly starts changing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Glass Hearts

George’s mum was a romantic. At least, that’s what she said. She’d given away her heart the first time when she was twenty, to Will, Harriett and George’s dad, and it hadn’t turned out too bad. Well, unless ‘too bad’ was defined as screaming loudly enough to wake the neighborhood up and dad moving out, having four kids on the side and another family and all that.

 

Mum’s heart was a shriveled thing now, barely even glowed. She kept it hidden in one of her jewelry boxes, floating next to all her mother’s necklaces and bracelets.

 

Almost everyone wore their hearts, or their significant other’s hearts. They traded their hearts away, giggling, blushing, and twirling their hair, so ceremonial about it, once they reached ‘that point’ in the relationship when everything was perfect and serious to wear each other’s hearts.

 

Will didn’t wear his heart, but he said that’s because no one in the military did. George kept his tucked away in one of his drawers. His wasn’t as crinkled as his mums. He’d watched her try to pawn it off to so many men and women after Dad left, left to be with them, but soon enough, her heart was too ugly to be traded.

 

“I won’t be like her.” Harriett told him. She had fastened her glowing heart onto a silver choker, so that everyone could see it, bright and large and hopeful, waiting to trade it for someone else’s. She grinned at him, and flounced away. George looked down at his hands, intertwining his fingers. His own heart was much too small to be fastened to a chain already.

 

George met Jaymi, Josh and JJ in the summer, when it was just chilly enough to need a light jacket. He had been walking around, looking for something to do, maybe get some food, when he saw them in the field, kicking around a football. One was sitting off to the side, with an ebony quiff, probably playing referee. Or perhaps he was waiting to play winner? Or maybe he was the one that lost, and the others were the last to play. George didn’t know, but the game was on, and the other two were playing.

 

Suddenly, the one with tattoos lining his arms dived towards the other, wrapping his arms around the blonds waist, pinning him to the ground, and while the blond was down in shock, stood up and kicked the ball between the goal.

 

“No fair, Jaymi!”

 

The quiff one laughed loudly, clapping his hands. George smiled, hands shoved deep in his pockets, watching the three friends get up onto their feet and tackle each other, their game forgotten. The one with the tattoos had a decent sized heart, with a few scratches, fastened to a bracelet- it wasn’t his. No, someone had presented him with their heart and he had happily traded, then they had gone as far as to put them into jewelry, a big step in the relationship.

 

The blond one let his float by his neck, a soft blue glow to it that matched his eyes as he smiled and laughed. The one with the ebony quiff however, he wore his heart by his wrist. They were all decent sized hearts, with a scratch or two here and there for the times the hearts had been walked on, but it made George feel so small as he thought of his tiny heart hidden in his sock drawer.

 

“Hey there!”

 

George looked up to see Mr. Blue Eyes jogging up to him, tossing the football between his hands. “Fancy some footie? We need another player, we’re one down.”

 

“Josh, how many times have I told you, you can’t ask random people-?” The tattooed bloke started scolding Mr. Blue Eyes- Josh- about bothering him.

 

“What, he was watching. So, you up for it? Me and Jaymi here usually play against each other.”

 

George shrugged. “I’m not a big footie player.”

 

“If me and Jaymi play together, we’re worse off,” Josh tossed him the ball. George looked down at the ball in his hands, and smiled, jogging onto the field.

 

Josh and Jaymi still won, despite their few arguments. Apparently, Josh had almost gone professional, until he had been injured, so George had never stood a chance. But it was fun, for the while, in the chilly summer. But he and the boy with the ebony hair had stood their own, cheering loudly when they scored.

 

“I’m JJ.” The boy grinned, a little too late, after Josh and Jaymi had won. They clasped hands, smiling and sweating in their jumpers.

 

“George.”

 

George knew what they were thinking, as they went to dinner together, and even continued to see each other through out the summer holidays. But it wasn’t polite conversation, not so early in their relationships. But he kept thinking back to his split heart hidden on his shelf.

 

Six months later, it was Josh’s fault for the first time George ever got drunk enough to be sick the next morning. One month after that, George met Olly, the one who had Jaymi’s heart, his fiancée, a European blond with a slight accent. Jaymi took him to his first ever carnival one town over, and JJ dragged him on the bumper cars, squealing and giggling and half willing, but it was one of the best evenings ever. And George had promised himself that he would never let them see his heart split in two, moving to hide it deep into his sock drawer.

 

But then, as George was finishing his degree, and they were finishing up the plans for Jaymi’s bachelor’s party- rather epic, if George said so himself, he made the vodka-induced fruit himself, one of Jaymi’s cousins and groomsmen cancelled. Jaymi didn’t mind.

 

“The guy’s a prick, I only asked him because his mum’s my mum’s sister, and she begged me to ask.” Jaymi collapsed on George’s couch. George, Josh and JJ laughed. “It’s not funny! That guy was going to be in all my pictures of my wedding! Thank god he cancelled.”

 

“If you hated him so much, you should have said no,” George shrugged.

 

“George, Georgie, Georgie.” Jaymi sat up excitedly. “You can do it now!”

 

Josh grinned and JJ started clapping. George looked at Jaymi, confused. “Uh, what?”

 

“I couldn’t ask you before cause I’d only known you a few months but now I can. Come on, be a groomsman.”

 

George could feel his throat tightening up.

 

“Come on then, all four of us, tuxedos and flowers, champagne, Jaymi’s most important night,” JJ swung an arm around George’s shoulder. His heart was dangling there, mocking George with it’s perfection.

 

It was tradition for all Groomsmen to wear their hearts on their lapels, while the bridesmaids wore them on their wrists. George could just imagine himself, standing there, with his shriveled heart split into, drawing attention away from the blessed couple. His cheeks colored in shame and he shook his head, stomach clenching.

 

“George-“

 

“No, no, I can’t.” George wanted to puke. Jaymi had looked so proud, just moments before, asking him to stand for him at his wedding. And Olly was a good man, George liked him just fine. But he couldn’t do this to him. He couldn’t stand at a wedding with a broken heart.

 

He found himself running out of the house, running home. He could hear them yelling after him, but it was like running through water, muted and so far away. Over the next few days, he hid his phone from sight, hiding in his bed, and trying not to cry.

 

Eventually, George got himself out of bed, pulled open his sock drawer and stared at his heart, hidden away in two pieces. It was smaller than it should have been, and the seam down the middle was smooth. George hated looking at it. That was when he truly started sobbing, keening until his throat and stomach hurt.

 

He woke up in his bed, with his friends looking down at him, his sock drawer still open and daunting. His cell phone was resting on his bedside table, blinking up with far too many missed calls and voice mails. He knew who they were all from.

 

“George. Why didn’t you tell us?” Jaymi asked.

 

George sat up, rubbing at his eyes. “Who let you in?”

 

“Harriett.”

 

George nodded slowly. “I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I told you it was a condition then.”

 

“George, you’re heart is in two.” JJ shook his head. “You should have told us. We would have helped.”

 

“You can’t help that.” George looked at JJ in the eye. “Its been like that since I was young, since I was a child.”

 

“George,” Jaymi put his hand on George’s knee. “I hate to break it to you, mate, but you still are a child.”

 

George narrowed his eyes. “Fuck off.”

 

It was decided that George would be still stand for him, because no one said no to Jaymi anyhow. JJ told him that, if he really wanted to, he could get a marble and use that as a pretend heart, or just use a flower instead.

 

“Can I see it, again?” JJ asked one night. George looked up from his paperwork. George now worked in advertisement doing web page design- creative enough for him, but sometimes he had to take some work home.

 

“See what?”

 

JJ rolled his eyes. George sighed, and nodded. JJ stood up, and went into George’s room. He knew where it was; JJ asked every so often if he could see George’s heart, though George wasn’t sure why. This time, though, he brought it back out into the living room. George shut his books. “What are you doing?”

 

JJ tugged George to make him move onto the couch. George was stiff and uncomfortable, watching as JJ cradled- cradled- the broken pieces in his other hand. “How often do you take your heart out?”

 

“I don’t know?” George replied coldly. “Why are you doing this?”

 

 

JJ shrugged, looking down at his hands. He held out George’s heart, handing it over to George. “I like to look at it. That’s all. How often?”

 

George shrugged, taking the pieces. “I never did like to look at it. Everyone else has such… well… and mines in too. It kind of gives you a complex, you know?”

 

JJ shook his head, and wrapped his arm around George, tucking him into him. “George, you can’t just hide your heart. Hearts need care; they need to be cuddled and to be looked after.”

 

George looked down at the pieces in his hands, swallowing carefully. “Mum always hid hers away. Then again, hers is uglier than mine-“

 

“George, your heart isn’t ugly. Don’t you ever say that again.” JJ sounded mad, and JJ wasn’t an angry person. He was happy, simple and sweet. So George nodded, and let JJ hold him.

 

“I don’t think I’ve ever held my heart for so long.” George said honestly.

 

“You should make it a practice.” JJ instructed him. “It’s not glass. It’s alive. It needs TLC.”

 

George giggled, snuggled deeper into JJ’s arm.

 

After that, it became practice. Whenever JJ came over, he got out George’s heart, and put it into George’s hands. Sometimes they would watch a movie, sometimes they would work, it didn’t quite matter. But something amazing happened.

 

Slowly, the seam started sewing itself together. JJ wasn’t one to notice these things, more to just grab and go. So George had to hold out his heart, and say, “Look, JJ.”

 

The very bottom of his heart had become reattached. JJ smiled, and kissed George’s nose.

 

“Has this ever happened before?” They looked at his heart in wonder. JJ only shrugged. He smiled, and leaned down, and kissed George on the lips, George’s heart, clenched in his hand, pressed between their chests.

 

“It doesn’t matter if yours is the first or the millionth. I still think your heart is the most beautiful heart I’ve ever seen.” JJ promised. George giggled and grinned, and kissed JJ again.

 

When Josh found them snogging against the stove, he mocked them for five minutes, until he found out that George’s heart had some how managed to half way mend itself. Then he called down Jaymi from the tailors, and they got themselves drunk in celebration.

 

“You two are the second sweetest, I swear.” Josh promised. “I’d say you were the sweetest, but we’re months away from a wedding, so I can’t.”

 

“I don’t mind.” George declared.

 

“No proposing at my wedding, do you hear me?” Jaymi scolded. “You can’t propose until after the honeymoon. No, until a week after the honeymoon. I need time to gossip.”

 

They laughed around their shots, JJ’s hand on George’s knee.


End file.
